1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a Light-Emitting Diode (hereinafter referred to as an ‘LED’) lighting apparatus, and more particularly, to an LED lighting apparatus having improved power efficiency, a current regulator for the LED lighting apparatus, and the current regulation method of the LED lighting apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent lighting apparatuses, incandescent lights and fluorescent lights are being replaced with LEDs capable of being implemented to have a relatively longer lifespan, low consumption power, and high brightness as lighting lamps.
The lighting apparatus may include, for example, a security light and a streetlamp. An LED lighting apparatus that adopts an LED lighting is also developed as the security light or streetlamp and commercialized.
In general, a conventional LED lighting apparatus is implemented using a Switching Mode Power Supply (hereinafter referred to as an ‘SMPS’) module using a commercial AC power source.
An example of the conventional LED lighting apparatus configured as described above is disclosed in Korean Patent Registration No. 10-1164631. In this patent, a commercial AC power source supplies a power to LEDs through an SMPS module and a driving circuit.
A conventional LED lighting apparatus may further include a sensor board which includes a sensor for sensing illuminance or the human body for dimming control or switching control purposes. In such a case, the LED lighting apparatus is configured to supply a power to the sensor board through the SMPS module.
However, the conventional LED lighting apparatus is disadvantageous in that it has a complicated construction because the conventional LED lighting apparatus includes the SMPS module for supplying a power to an LED lighting and the driving circuit for driving LEDs using a current driving method.
Furthermore, in the conventional LED lighting apparatus, the SMPS module is designed to have power efficiency of about 90%, and the driving circuit is also designed to have power efficiency of about 90%. As a result, the conventional LED lighting apparatus is designed to have total efficiency of about 81%. As described above, the conventional LED lighting apparatus has a problem in that total power efficiency is reduced due to the complicated construction.
Furthermore, peripheral circuit modules, such as the sensor board, may be additionally configured in the LED lighting apparatus. In such a case, most of power is consumed by the driving circuit for driving LEDs.
Accordingly, the conventional LED lighting apparatus is problematic in that power efficiency for the additional peripheral circuit modules is low because most of power is consumed by the driving circuit for driving LEDs.